


Caribou

by Frasers_soulmate



Category: due South
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:18:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8835367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frasers_soulmate/pseuds/Frasers_soulmate
Summary: Little Ben and his mum on a cold winters day...





	

**Author's Note:**

> What happened in Benton's childhood that he carries so many demons into the present?  
> It starts like a fairy tale, but without a happy ending.
> 
> This story is written in the style of the Inuit stories, as Fraser would perhaps tell them.
> 
> This is the translation from my German story "Karibu".
> 
> It's the first translation I've done by myself. I hope I got it right. 
> 
> Well...mostly.
> 
> If not, please show me the grammar or spelling mistakes. TYK

A long time ago there was a boy. He was six years old when his mother died. She did not die from an illness or accident. She was murdered.

And this boy had to watch it.

He didn't see WHO shot her, but he found her bleeding in the snow.

It was not here - in Chicago, but in the north of Canada.

The father of the boy was a mountie and very rarely at home.

One evening, the boy and his mother were sitting comfortably in their cabin, they heard a dog sledge.  
The boy thought it was his father, but his mother said he should stay in the cabin and went to the door.  
He heard his mother argue with a man outside and wondered who he was and why he was fighting with his mother. He also heard a few times the name "Bob" said. The name of his father.

Then he heard a shot. From a gun. He knew the sound, his father had taken him to the hunt last summer and killed a caribou.  
But near the cabin there was no caribou, otherwise he would have seen their tracks in the snow in the afternoon when he was playing outside.

Suddenly it was quiet.

The boy heard the dog's team move away. Now his mother would be right back into the cabin.

But she did not come.

Perhaps there was a caribou, and it took some time before she had prepared it for transport. But the man could have helped her.  
Well, maybe he had to go on urgently?  
After all, it was already dark.  
His mother didn't want to leave the caribou outside overnight, so that the carcass wouldn't attract wild beasts.

The boy climbed onto the windowsill and looked out.  
The moon brightened the snow, but the boy couldn't really see anything. Just a dark lump in the snow.

The caribou?

But actually the lump was too small. Perhaps another animal?  
His mother had surely gone to the barn to get his father's tools and the stall lanterns. He would have liked to look up, but he had promised his mother to stay in the house.  
And he was an obedient little boy, whose parents should be proud of him. His mother shouldn't have to complain when his father came home.

Since the boy couldn't help her in disassembling and transporting the animal, he decided to prepare a surprise for her. If she wanted him to help her, she would surely get him.

So he took his crayons and a piece of paper and began to draw.

His mother loved roses. She had tried to plant a rose garden, but the Queen of flowers didn't grow in the harsh climate of the north.  
So he began to draw a rose for his mother. He went to great lengths to make it look beautiful.

At some point he became tired. Terribly tired. And his mother still wasn't back. So he decided to go to bed. He wrote in his most beautiful handwriting under the rose:

"FOR MUM.  
I LOVE YOU.  
YOUR BEN "

And put the sheet of paper next to his mother's breakfast board. So she would find it at the latest tomorrow morning and be proud of him.

When the boy woke up the next morning, it was cold in the cabin. It didn't smell like breakfast, as usual. And he didn't hear his mother sing. As she always did in the morning.  
Was she still asleep?  
Surely it was late until she brought the killed animal into the barn.

"Mum?" He shouted softly. From the barn he heard the dogs bark.  
He climbed on the windowsill and looked out. The dark lump he'd seen last night was still there. Only it was half-blown from the snow.  
He wondered if his mother hadn't managed to evade the slaughtered animal.  
Perhaps she had become tired?  
He blinked at the bright sunlight and stared at the lump.  
What lay there was covered with his mother's parka. He smiled.

Sly Mum!

So the venison took the smell of humans and frightened wolves and other animals. Alright then. He would make breakfast today and then wake up his mother. After all, he was already six years old. Almost a man. He dressed, went to the kitchen and filled the kettle with water.  
But the stove was off.The boy wasn't sure if he could get him to heat up.  
He piled wood into the fire-hole and looked for the matches. But he couldn't find them. Surely his mother had hid them.

He remembered a conversation between his parents. His father cursed because he couldn't find the matches and his mother thought she had to hide them so that the boy wouldn't do nonsense with them. His father argued that he was a clever boy and would never play with the matches.That made the boy proud.  
But his mother thought he was a very curious, multi-interested child and that she wanted to prevent something from happening. After all, he had inherited the imprudence of his father and he knew what had happened then.They had to live in an igloo for a while.  
The boy wondered what might have happened at that time, but he couldn't remember ever having lived in an igloo. So that was probably before his birth.  
However, he found the thought of living in an igloo interesting. He would have liked to ask his parents, but then they knew he had been eavesdropping.  
All right then.He would wake his mother and ask for the matches, after that she could go on sleeping. He would get it.

He quietly opened the door to the parents' bedroom, but the bed was empty. It looked as if it had been unused all night. Helplessly the boy rubbed his brow with his thumb.  
Perhaps his mother was in the barn?  
When he came back to the kitchen he saw that the picture he draw for his mother lay unaffected in the same place. So his mother hadn't been in the house? A sudden lump in his throat let him swallow.

Where was she? 

No, he didn't want to be afraid. So the barn! He put on his boots, his jacket and his toque, took his mittens, and left the house.

There were no traces from the house to the barn. That surprised him. He looked around. It was very cold, the sun was shining and the snow glittered.  
The boy shielded his eyes from the bright light with his hands. The only tracks he found led to the lump in the snow. He followed them.  
When he got there, he knelt down and freed what was lying there from the snow. Yes, it was clearly his mother's parka. And there was blood everywhere.  
Red frozen in the white of landscape. Like a bright fanal, in the colors of his country.  
Then he pushed the hood from the parka aside and his heart stopped for a moment.

His own eyes stared at him.  
Large and blue and without life.

It took him a while to realize that it was his mother.  
He knew she was no longer alive, but he still tried to wake her up.  
When he realized that he couldn't do it, he snuggled up to warm her.

It was getting cold.

Terribly cold. 

But he didn't care. 

He felt nothing but a great emptiness.

Wide and white and cold, like the landscape in which he lived.

Somehow he heard the dogs bark and whimper in the barn, and wished they would be quiet so that he could sleep.  
Cuddled to his mother, like a baby ...

But then he remembered what his father had said before he left.  
He said, "Take care of the dogs, son, this is your duty, they are the first thing you need to worry about when you get up in the morning and the last thing before you go to bed. If that works, I'll teach you how to drive a dog sled when I come home next time. And soon you'll get your own team. "

The boy had been very proud at the time, and even if his mother had objections and thought he was still much too young, almost a baby, the boy was happy that his father had so much confidence in him. He begged until his mother allowed it.

He told her that he was about to return, that he had only to feed the dogs and then he stood up.  
He stomped to the barn with stiff limbs.

When the heat of the barn surrounded him, he simply collapsed.

After he had come back to consciousness, his father was there and the village doctor. The boy lay in his bed and felt miserable.The doctor said he's running a high fever and had a pneumonia. He would have slept for two days. The only thing the boy could remember was that he was thirsty. Terrible thirsty. His father gave him tea, and he was very happy about it.

Then the nightmares began.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the lot of blood and the dead eyes of his mother, which were so similar to his own.  
His father didn't know what to do and asked the boy's grandmother for advice.  
She looked after father and son until the boy was healthy, which lasted a long time.

But the nightmares remained.  
Sometimes they are still there...


End file.
